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Gascony Diary
Jun 05
June in Gascony
has brought with it a searing heat. The
landscape has changed from the glorious
patchwork squares of green to the calm washed
out watered down shades of ochre and straw that
will be with us now until the end of September
at least. Everything is slowing down. Crickets
and lizards - creatures that can spend hours in
the sun doing nothing at all - are coming into
their own. And any one with the opportunity, who
is here on holiday or in their homes is doing
likewise. The temperature today is 95degrees and
respite is provided by the cool aquamarine water
of the pool and the protection of an old stone
house. But what of the poor garden? It has been
said, many times, that the French don’t make
gardens. They grow flowers. I am sure that in
Normandy and other more temperate areas this is
probably not true. Or if it once was, then the
influx of British owners and the greater leisure
time enjoyed by French and English alike has
changed that.
But here in the
hotter south it is still the norm that most
country properties don’t have what the English
might recognise as flower gardens: In high
summer, geraniums and other specimens in simple
terracotta pots sit against the warm stone walls
of the house. Isolated hybrid tea roses struggle
to maintain a noble look as they reach upwards
from dusty, weed -free soil. Trees and shrubs,
often of no particular merit, are planted singly
and indiscriminately in the closely mown lawns
in front of the houses. And all of it is
enclosed by a green mesh fence to keep the dog
in or the cows out. It can seem seriously
uninspiring to those of us who may have spent
years in sedentary jobs and who relish the
opportunity of kneeling down, dipping our
fingers into cool fresh earth and lavishing our
art-starved brains on the creativity of a
mini-landscape. But these French gardens
represent the agrarian view of the countryside;
a place that should be productive (and you
should see their vegetable gardens!) and labour
saving.
There is no time
nor energy to faff about with hand weeding
around the begonias and clipping a long yew
hedge into shape after a days work in the
fields. To the farmer, a garden should have a
purpose closely aligned to the necessities of
life. He doesn’t need the beauty and romance
that we all know a garden can offer. He sees
that every day from the tractor or simply from
opening his door which will so often look
straight out onto the rolling hills with no
traffic, shops or tarmac ribbons in sight. He
watches the black kites dive vertically from
their thermals, their eyes fixed firmly on the
mice being disturbed, as he cuts the hay. He
sees the vivid yellow and black flash of a snake
as it disappears up the crackling grass of a
bank. He sees the sky changing daily, both in
hue and cloud formation and must still marvel at
the mackerel skies or storm warnings of the
anvil shaped clouds. And no Gertrude Jekyll
border can rival the verges and banks in Spring
for their wildflower ‘collection’.
So the question
is - will those of us who come to spend part of
our lives in this rural landscape fight on to
plant and nurture our herbaceous borders and
‘water features’ against all the odds of high
water costs and hot relentless sun or will we
learn to leave our hoes and hand forks rusting
under the grange, sit outside on the stone steps
or under the vine covered terrace and see,
perhaps for the first time, the garden that has
always been there. I must admit that I’m heading
a little toward the second. But if you ever see
me erecting a green mesh fence please don’t
hesitate in telling me I’ve gone a step too
far!!
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